Education about voting rights and distance from polling places key issues in addressing voter suppression

Sep. 29—SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — One top reason people don't register to vote in South Dakota is because they don't know that they can.

Melissa McCauley's is the lead organizer for Sioux Falls-based LEAD, a group that helps people register to vote. She said she helped 140 people register at a Sioux Falls event in June, and she believes a top barrier has been a lack of information about who is allowed to register.

"This is a huge issue, and every year it comes up," McCauley said. "And every year we're just hopeful that we can get people registered, but we need them to show up."

There are a number of reasons why a person may be ineligible to vote. People 17 and younger can't vote in South Dakota, neither can convicted felons who are serving out sentences, or people who have been deemed mentally incompetent by a court.

But while people who are actively incarcerated or are on parole are not permitted to register, once they complete their parole, and finish paying any fees related to their crime, they are permitted to register to vote in South Dakota elections.

McCauley said that several people they spoke to during that event thought their criminal status would prevent them from voting.

"Voting is a huge part of democracy, so we want to make sure that people understand and know their rights," McCauley said.

Other events, like the Lakota People's Law Project's "vote fest" in Rapid City last October, are intended to get folks who have gathered together registered to vote, without asking them the make a special trip to a polling location or the county auditors office.

The distance from someone's home and place of work to a polling location can be a significant factor in encouraging or discouraging participation in voter registration.

Sen. Shawn Bordeaux said that is especially true for people who earn lower-than-average wages, which weighs exercising their right to vote with other pressing priorities.

"If you're making people who barely have gas money have to decide whether they want to buy diapers or whether they want to drive all the way over to Gann Valley from Stephan, or someplace further, that's a bit of economic suppression," Bordeaux said.

In Stephan, on the Crow Creek Reservation, the nearest polling location is in Gann Valley, about 39 miles away.

The lack of available polling places is not uniform across rural South Dakota counties, but disproportionately affects South Dakota Native American communities.

For example, Todd County, on the Rosebud Indian Reservation, has a population of 9,286, and in 2022 less than half of that population registered to vote, but 1,945 ballots were cast in the 2022 election.

Harding County, with a population of 1,327 according to U.S. Census data, had 986 voters registered in the last election.

South Dakota is in the minority with online voter registration,

even compared to other states in the region

. 41 states have some form of online voter registration; the states that require mail-in registration include North and South Dakota, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Maine Wyoming and Montana.

Bordeaux put forward an idea during last year's session to allow Native Americans to register to vote in South Dakota with their tribal identification cards.

Though the idea was tabled almost unanimously, Bordeaux said he will keep pushing this bill into the next session, if only to highlight the need for more solutions for increasing voter registration in Native American communities.